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No the problem there is actually transporting that. It's no use to build a solar farm there and then stretch a long copper powerline back to wherever it is needed because of the losses involved.



"The studies concluded that the extremely high solar radiation in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East outweighs the 10–15% transmission losses between the desert regions and Europe. This means that solar thermal power plants in the desert regions are more economical than the same kinds of plants in southern Europe."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desertec


I was including transportation issues in capturing. There is also the storage problem.


No storage problem if you build a global superconductor power grid.


Of course that requires superconductors that are reasonably inexpensive and relatively robust and maintainable!




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